At Defaqto we have regular dress-down days where we all donate £1 to charity which the company matches.  It’s all in the spirit of teamwork, lets me wear my jeans and a scruffy T-shirt, and raises money for good causes. 

Today is this month’s dress-down day and the charity for today is Cancer Research

Cancer is still one of the biggest killers in the UK, and every early death from these diseases is a tragedy for the individual and the family they leave behind.  Everyone wants to see it beaten and we are spending billions looking for cures.  The Human Genome Project is likely to be one of the key developments in this field, leading to new and more effective treatments or possibly even cures.

Yet the speed at which we are finding cures for diseases brings us new challenges.

Human life expectancy is increasing at an amazing speed - at least in the developed world anyway.  A child born today has an AVERAGE life expectancy of something like 80 years.  And that is the AVERAGE.  Yet we have a retirement age which is set at 65, and over time will increase to 67.  This means that our children will need to plan for a pension that will last them at least 15 years, and quite possibly 25-30 years. 

Imagine that finding a cure for cancer could add 10 years to our average life expectancy - it would be incredible.  But most people who get cancer do so in later life - often past retirement age.  So cancer cures actually mean that for many people their life will be extended from a starting point when they have already retired, and are living on their pension.

We already know that people are not saving enough for retirement.  Research carried out by Defaqto late last year showed that people already accept this and many are planning to use their houses to fund their retirement, or even planning to carry on working to supplement their pensions.

If we do extend average lifetimes by 10 years then every one of those years will require a state pension payment of £4,540 (single person state pension 2007-08), so extending lifetimes by 10 years could cost the Government an additional £45,400 per person in pension costs alone. 

In addition this extra lifetime will not be like the life in your 20s or 30s - it will be 10 extra years from age 80 to 90, which means there will also be additional care issues.  Again there will be a cost associated with this. 

As a country and as individuals we need to think about how we are going to look after ourselves when scientists find the cure for cancer.  Many of us will gain from avoiding what is often a very unpleasant death, and enjoy an extra period of life.  But we need to accept that as we find cures that help us live longer we need to save more to pay for that extra lifetime - because the government of the future (which really means our taxpaying grandchildren) won’t be able to afford to support us.